Chapter 10
Friday 4:17 pm
Steve knew there would be people searching the wreckage for survivors and that he had to find some way of connecting with them. Shouting was a waste of both air and energy, as the sound would be smothered by the immense mass of material separating them. The adrenaline rush sparked by his discovery of the rising water, and the rehydration it offered, clarified his thinking, and he evaluated his options in alternative communication. Telepathy would come in handy round about now. Semaphore is out, as is sign language. Morse code is my best bet.
He remembered the pipes he had found earlier. They had presumably been connected to a central system throughout the building and would carry sound efficiently. He just needed something with which to strike them. Lying flat, keeping his mouth out of the water, he groped around to the full extent of his reach and located a yard-long piece of unconnected pipe. It was awkward to wield, and the reverberations of pipe hitting pipe sent shock waves of agony up his injured arm, but he was confident that it could be heard by anyone nearby using monitoring equipment.
During the next few hours he fell into a pattern of beating out an SOS every fifteen minutes or so and reserving his energy between messages. The unremitting exposure to the chill of the water was sapping his strength, and he was shivering uncontrollably. He clenched his teeth in a futile effort to stop them chattering, but it merely seemed to exacerbate the tremors in the rest of his body. His arm wasn't hurting so much, but he knew enough about medicine to recognise that this was not a good sign. He was so tired he couldn't think straight, his thoughts drifting like leaves before a strong breeze. The situation was grave and deteriorating by the minute, but he still clung to hope. His father was looking for him. He knew that with a certainty that resonated deep inside, providing a warmth of spirit that helped counteract the cold of his surroundings.
He also had no doubts that, if no one else was able to find him, Mark eventually would. Meanwhile, it was his job, his duty, his responsibility to survive. His mind shied away from the image of his father discovering his dead body, as he knew just how devastating an effect that would have. It would have been bad enough if he had died in the initial quake, but his father was strong and, although things would never be the same, he would eventually come to term with such a loss. However, if his son died waiting for rescue, Mark would never forgive himself for failing to find him in time.
There was one other possibility that Steve had so far tried to avoid contemplating, yet it slithered unbidden into his thoughts. He remembered his father reading an article to him concerning a hiker whose arm had been trapped under a boulder. After five days, he had freed himself by amputating his own arm with a pocketknife, and walked miles before finding help. It was an extreme method of self-extrication, and Steve didn't know if he had the cold-blooded courage to emulate such an act. Was he willing to pay that price for survival?
He searched gingerly about his person. He didn't know at what point in the proceedings he'd lost his gun, but his Swiss army knife was still buried deep in his front pocket. He pulled it out, awkwardly extracting the largest blade and testing it for sharpness. He grimaced at the concept of hacking through flesh and bone with that relatively dull edge, and tucked it back carefully. It was a last resort, a decision to be considered only if all other options had been exhausted. For now, he hadn't reached that level of desperation, and he sought to channel his thoughts in a more cheerful direction.
'The service in this place is terrible, I really must complain to the management. The floor is way too hard and wet, the ambience lacks that certain something, the decor is dreary, and I'm so tired of listening to myself breathe. The next time I find myself stuck in an earthquake, I really must make sure I have better provisions. A few Snickers bars and a heaping pile of steaming ribs. I'll never go anywhere without them again.' The mental image of himself pounding the streets of Los Angeles with ribs dripping out of every pocket followed by half the canine population of the city lightened his mood considerably, and he gave himself over to a pleasant fantasy of what he would rather be doing at that moment.
'First, I'd have a hot bath and soak in the luxurious warmth until I turned into a prune. Then, I'd sit on the couch in front of the TV, with my feet on the coffee table, sharing a plate of BBQ Bob's best with Dad. It must be...Friday night by now. We'd watch Monk and I'd make fun of the travesty they call police procedures and Dad would figure out who'd done it five minutes into the show, then we'd ….we'd...'
His mental narrative trailed off as the words triggered a cascade of memories that took on a new relevance upon reexamination. When he'd questioned MacKay about his activities the night of the murder, the Professor had replied that he'd been watching Law and Order. Yet Steve had never mentioned a specific time, so was it just a coincidence that MacKay had offered an alibi for the exact time of the murder? With the earthquake and its aftermath following so close to the interview, Steve had lacked the opportunity to pursue his suspicions concerning MacKay, but now it made an effective distraction to his own predicament.
All the evidence seemed circumstantial, yet something was teasing at his subconscious, something he'd seen, or MacKay had done, that had convinced him that the Professor was not the innocent he claimed. He concentrated his powers of recall and mentally replayed the interview of the previous day, isolating each incident and examining it from all angles. He could feel the vital piece of incriminating evidence float tantalisingly just outside his reach, lazily evading his efforts to grasp it; then, in a sudden illuminating flash he had it - the object of which he had caught a glimpse on MacKay's desk before his line of sight was obscured. It was an ornamental pen set with a black and gold design. There was a letter opener and a pencil, but the space for a pen was empty, and Steve knew why. MacKay had lost it in the struggle at the top of the stairs when he'd murdered Gilman, and Steve had last seen it in his father's hands while he'd admired it with Lisa who had claimed it as an anniversary present.
Everything fell into place: motive, means and opportunity. Lisa was an accomplice to her husband's murder, and had drugged him before driving to the charity dinner, leaving him an easy victim for her co-conspirator. MacKay had found his perfect revenge; he had not only stolen Gilman's life but also his wife and fortune. 'This has to be the strangest place that I've ever solved a murder in. Kinda inconvenient too. If someone would just hold my place in line, I've got to go make an arrest, I'll be right back. Damn it! I really don't want that murdering SOB to get away with...Oh my God, Dad!'
A flutter of fear swelled into a cold chill that had nothing to do with the icy conditions around him, as the full ramifications of Lisa Gilman's collaboration with her husband's murderer sank in. Images of his father holding up the pen, the phone ringing as he left MacKay's office and the last glimpse of MacKay watching him from his window, tumbled relentlessly to the front of his mind, dropping into place with the inevitability of a slot machine. The ghastly jackpot was the inescapable conclusion that, with Steve himself out of the picture, only one man stood between MacKay and forty-six million dollars, and that man was Mark Sloan.
Steve tried to convince himself that MacKay wouldn't take the risk of going after his father, but he knew with an instinct deeper than pure logic that Mark was in terrible danger. He recognised the attributes of a natural killer in MacKay - the conviction of his mental and physical superiority tipping a healthy self-confidence into arrogance, and a moral deficiency that placed his own needs paramount and saw other people merely as obstacles that could be disposed of. Steve emitted a groan of despair as he realised that his father was oblivious to the significance of the pen and the existence of any danger. Even worse, his instincts for self-preservation, unreliable at the best of times, would be subsumed in the search and worry for his son.
Frustration bubbled corrosively through his veins at the knowledge that not only could he not protect his father, he couldn't even warn him of the existence of the imminent threat. Steve thought back to the many times Mark had faced down a killer, his courage, curiosity and sense of justice allowing him to coax the incriminating evidence needed for conviction, but also secure in the knowledge that his son was, covertly or not, guarding his back. The image flashed through his mind of Delaney, holding a gun to his father's head and the satisfying pain to his knuckles as he put all his anger and fear into a blow that leveled the rogue cop. That was how it should be - Steve's strength and physical abilities at his father's call when required. It was utterly intolerable to passively await rescue when Mark was in danger.
Escape was imperative, and Steve was seriously considering the knife in his pocket when inspiration struck. He thrust the end of the pipe under the block that held his arm captive, then, after groping blindly in all directions, he found a piece of brick to act as a fulcrum. 'MacGyver I'm not, but I still remember some basic physics. Who was it who said, "give me a lever long enough and a place to stand and I could move the world"? I'll have to ask Dad, it's just the sort of thing that would come up in his crosswords.'
Failure was no longer an option, and he cleared his mind of the anticipation of pain before pushing down on the other end of the pipe with all the force he could muster. He found the strength he hadn't been able to summon before, and his arm came free. Cradling it protectively, he sat up, banging his head on the underside of the sink in the process. The relief of a different position to his cramped muscles was exquisite, but quickly offset by the agony of returning feeling in his arm. An incautious touch had revealed jagged edges of bone projecting through the skin, and the compound fracture allowed for the blood returning to the compressed area to flow liberally. He could feel it running, oddly warm against the chill of his arm.
'Good thing I'm sitting down already. Bloodloss 3, Steve 0, or at least there will be soon if I don't do something about it.' The heavy nauseous feeling was a good indication that an already serious problem had been exacerbated and, employing a torn-off piece of shirt, Steve attempted to fashion a tourniquet. In the dark with only the use of one hand and his teeth, it almost proved too much of a challenge, but finally he was satisfied with the results and flopped back against the wall to ride out the worst of the pain with gritted teeth and the occasional subvocal imprecation.
The red-hot fire that consumed his arm eventually subsided to a manageable level, leaving him limp and exhausted. The lack of sensory input, combined with the cumulative effects of his untreated injuries, was making it progressively harder to keep track of time or even consciousness. He knew he'd been fading in and out, but, awake or asleep, his world was dark and full of pain. But now, a greater sense of purpose bolstered his waning strength. Using the brick, he hammered out another SOS on the pipes before shuffling gingerly forward, his left hand exploring for weaknesses in his prison. It was only about four feet ahead that he found the wall, completing his mental picture of the confining area. However, at the furthest extent of his space, he believed he could feel the gentle exhalation of fresh air through a small cavity next to the wall, and there was a slight yield as he pushed upwards on his makeshift ceiling. Determined to get a warning to his father as soon as humanly possible, yet grimly aware of the probable futility of his actions, he pulled out his knife again to start the long job of chipping away at the hole in an attempt to widen it enough to fit through.
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As Newman drove off, Mark marched into the hospital, determination radiating from every pore, most clearly discernible in the intent expression on his face, the tilt of his head and the speed of his walk. Such powerful internal focus, however, precluded the application of his usually acute powers of observation and he paid no attention to the stranger who fell into step beside him, merely throwing him an abstracted smile of thanks for the information that the elevator was not in order. Without breaking his stride, he headed towards the stairs, the stranger close behind.